I can haz e-books I paid for, Amazon?

I left this note–well, essay–on amazon.com’s Kindle Customer Service board:

My dad bought me a nice new Kindle DX as a gift. Meanwhile, he loaned me his while I crammed for Ph.D. exams. I purchased a few books, downloaded many classics, and uploaded study notes, lists, individual docs, etc. All well and good. I decided I much prefer the smaller Kindle and so he’s taking the DX. However, it’s my understanding that, because I bought my obscure literary criticism on his machine, that I cannot transfer those titles to my Kindle.

This is a major, major DRM issue. I in fact purchased the book on his Kindle, and we in fact are swapping possession of our respective Kindles, both of which he purchased.

If you look at our accounts, you will see that we have spent TENS of thousands of dollars at amazon.com over the years. I think that, as a goodwill gesture, you should do whatever is necessary to tweak the code on these individual downloads OR to issue an immediate credit back so that I might repurchase said books on my own machine.

If not, I would be extremely wary of continuing to use the Kindle at all, and would go directly to a more user-friendly version. I understand the issues with DRM and piracy, and (as an author) I strongly support protecting *author’s* rights. However, in cases such as this, clearly the customer who has paid for the use of this particular e-book should certainly be accommodated, as the book is not being pirated or even read/shared by two people.

You might counter that you have no way of knowing this. Given that each download has its own identification, I doubt that. It’s easy enough to see later whether I’d cracked this individual copy of Spiller’s _The Development of the Sonnet_ and sold thousands of copies on the international black market (think of all the sonnet specialists drooling for such contraband!– all 12 of us!).

Yet, cynically, retread versions of public-domain classics (often poorly formatted) are shamelessly sold on amazon.com. Sold? Someone downloads a work from Project Gutenberg, “designs” a “cover,” sells it on amazon.com, and repeats the process?… And I can’t get a book that I paid for on my dad’s account into my account when it already exists physically on the Kindle I put it into? And he just paid for the new, expensive Kindle?…

In this case, I suggest that sound judgment should override mindless policy. I cannot afford to repurchase titles which I’ve already bought and being forced to do so is not in any way fair. I’m certain a judge would agree.

Surely this can be done on the back end via the users’ web interfaces. Create a particular link: “Transfer ownership”–make the person read and agree to swear to whatever legalese that covers the situation I’ve described–and then allow User Account A to e-mail the book(s) in question to User Account B ONE TIME ONLY via wireless. Your tech people could set up a database to track such transfers. And you most certainly should NOT charge any fee for doing so. If User B subsequently upgrades, he or she should be able to put all existing purchases into the new device.

Philosophically speaking, I think the current situation overreaches reasonable transfers. Again, I stress: I am NOT advocating that amazon.com create a Napster– or LimeWire-sized venue for mass file abuse. I do think it obvious that situations like this offer amazon.com an opportunity to demonstrate respect for its loyal customers.

Finally, I think it’s only a matter of time before some kind of system for transferring between users comes up. Whatever that might be, I hope that the author benefits from each use, just as recording artists and actors earn residuals when their works are played. I wonder whether ASCAP/BMI offer useful models for this.

What I enormously resent as a writer are huge publishing companies whose “pay” for, say, encyclopedia articles doesn’t even cover copy costs, yet who retain all digital rights and then resell MY work for enormous sums via library subscriptions, for example. I worry that, despite the savings on freight, paper, ink, distribution, etc. the middlemen and weasels will earn a disproportionate percentage of rights at the author’s expense.

Anyway, this is much longer than I’d planned. I hope you find this persuasive and that you will return my obscure literary analysis purchases as soon as possible.

Share this:

Like this:

Related

One thought on “I can haz e-books I paid for, Amazon?”

A way of getting around your problem would be to register the Kindles with your respective accounts temporarily, download the books that you want, de-register and re-register the Kindle to your account again. It’s kind of a hassle to deregister-reregister, but it’s what some parents are doing to give their kids access to Kindle books they’ve bought but don’t want the kids to have access to the entire archive all the time.